ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – Dominica will next month implement a new system that will sensitize and protect consumers across the Caribbean of dangerous goods in the market.
The CARICOM Rapid Alert System for Exchange of Information on Dangerous (non-food) Consumer Goods (CARREX) is an initiative of the CARICOM Secretariat which developed the alert system in response to concerns expressed over the years by consumer representatives of the need to protect consumers from unsafe products.
CARREX functions as a general alert and surveillance structure intended to cope with emergency situations. It aims essentially to permit the rapid exchange of information between the member states and the CARICOM Secretariat when the presence of a product which represents a grave and immediate risk to consumers’ health and safety has been detected.
Speaking at a two-day consultation that ended Friday on the initiative, Dominica acting director of trade, Matthan Walter said “our purpose here is simple; to be sensitized to and about the CARREX”.
He said the initiative is pertinent to “consumers and by extension our citizens nationally and regionally as it relates to dangerous products”.
CARREX enables national authorities to act immediately where a serious and immediate danger has been registered to circulate non-food and pharmaceutical products on the national territory.
The products covered under CAREX includes toys, vehicles, cosmetics, children’s equipment, clothing, textiles and fashion items, household appliances, machine tools, kitchen/cooking accessories, gas and heating appliances, jewellery, machinery and construction materials.
Food and pharmaceutical items have been excluded from this system as procedures which monitor such products tend to have a higher level of stringency and are regulated by different processes.
Walter said he was urging stakeholders “to absorb, engage in lively discussions, ask questions and ensure that upon leaving here …you have exhausted our dear friends from the CSME Unit and at the same time enlightened yourself about this initiative”.
Deputy programme manager at the Barbados-based CARICOM CSME Unit, Philip McClauren said that the system is an important one for the community.
“In the recent past and even now, we had to rely on international organizations to tell us when there is a dangerous good, particularly on the US market, in Europe or perhaps it may be in our own market in CARICOM”.
McClauren added that they have realized that international organizations are more concerned about their own markets and citizens, hence the need to remove reliance on them.
Dominica is the fourth country visited by the regional officials as they outline how the CARREX system operates.
